Biography
Jesús Sepúlveda is the author of seventeen books, including his green-anarchist manifesto The Garden of Peculiarities (2002), collections of his selected poems, Poemas de un bárbaro (2013) and Poço de seda (2022), a critical study of Latin American poetry, Poets on the Edge (2016), and the essay Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control (2023).
His most recent poetry collections are Espejo de los detalles / Mirror of Details (2020) and Pax Americana (2023). His third collection Hotel Marconi (1998) was made into a film in Chile in 2009.
His work has been translated from Spanish into twelve languages and published in more than twenty countries, leading him to participate in many poetry festivals and readings throughout the world.
Jesús Sepúlveda was born in Santiago de Chile and currently lives in Eugene, Oregon, where he teaches at the University of Oregon.
CHILE
Jesús Sepúlveda studied at Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas and then at the Metropolitan University of Sciences of Education (UMCE) in Santiago de Chile. His first collection Lugar de origen (1987), written when he was a teenager, is a work representative of a generation rising up against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
He participated in the creative writing workshop “Fines de siglo” directed by Carmen Berenguer between 1985 and 1986 where many members of the “Generation Post 87” met and wrote their first works.
In 1989 Sepúlveda received a literary fellowship from the Pablo Neruda Foundation and in the early 1990s he directed the literary magazine Piel de Leopardo, which became a cultural icon of the Chilean underground and the post-dictatorship literary scene.
EUGENE, OREGON
Sepúlveda’s third collection Hotel Marconi was published in Chile in 1998 while he was already based in Eugene, Oregon. Poet Paul Dresman translated the book into English in 2006. A revised edition of his translation was reprinted in 2012. The collection was also made into a film in Chile by Pulso Films in 2009.
Between 1996 and 2000, Sepúlveda and Dresman founded and coedited the bilingual literary journal Helicóptero. They published and translated many authors from Latin America and the U.S., creating a bridge between cultures and languages in times when the Internet was not massively available. Helicóptero was printed in Eugene, OR.
POETRY COLLECTIONS
Sepúlveda’s fourth collection Correo negro was published in Buenos Aires in 2001. This collection was awarded first prize for poetry by Argentine magazine Perro negro, and reprinted later in Chile in 2008.
Escrivania--a collection written during his stay in the Netherlands--was published in Mexico in 2003.
In 2003 he wrote the poem “Pax Americana” to protest against the invasion of Iraq. This poem was included in the homonymous collection of his political poems published in a bilingual edition in Ohio in 2023.
Sepúlveda’s long philosophical poem Antiegótico appeared in Viña del Mar in 2013, and his collection Secoya was released in New York in 2015 in a public reading at the NY Public Library.
One of his latest poetic works, Espejo de los detalles / Mirror of Details, was printed simultaneously in Chile and the USA in 2020. The American bilingual edition was translated by Elmira Louie and illustrated by Ivo Vergara Lasnibat (aka Ivotopia).
THE GARDEN OF PECULIARITIES
The green-anarchist manifesto The Garden of Peculiarities is probably the best-known work by Jesús Sepúlveda. It was published in Buenos Aires in 2002, one month after the Argentine social uprising. Sections of the book were serialized in the magazine Green Anarchy between 2001 and 2007. As of now, there are editions in Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Italian available in ten countries while many pirated editions circulate online as well as in underground publications and anarchist zines.
John Zerzan wrote the prologue for the Chilean editions published by Nihil Obstat in 2011 and 2018, and Portuguese edition published by Textos Subterráneos in 2018. The latest edition came out in Sao Paulo in 2022 with an extensive interview with Jesús celebrating the 20th anniversary of its publication.
ANTHOLOGIES
Sepúlveda’s selected poems were collected in Poemas de un bárbaro published in Santiago de Chile in 2013, and Poço de seda, published in a bilingual edition Spanish-Portuguese in Lisbon in 2022. The e-book É um Rio que Perdeu a sua Luz is a selection of his poetry published in Portuguese in 2020 by Entre Editora—a Brazilian collective that created the EntreWiki webpage for his work.
His poetry has been included in 26 anthologies published in Chile, USA, Mexico, Spain, France, Macedonia, and India. The most recent ones are: Anthologie de la poésie chilienne: 26 poètes d’aujourd’hui (bilingual edition French-Spanish), edited by Patricio Sánchez-Rojas (France, Maison de la poésie Rhône-Alpes: 2021); The End of the World Project, edited by John Bloomberg-Rissman, Richard Lopez, and T.C. Marshall (Indiana, USA, Moria Press, 2019); and Antología de poesía chilena. La generación post 87: Otra vuelta de tuerca, vol. 3, edited by Teresa Calderón, Lila Calderón, and Thomas Harris (Chile: Catalonia: 2018).
ACADEMIC WORK
Dr. Sepúlveda earned his PhD in Romance Languages in 2003 from the University of Oregon where he currently teaches upper-division classes as a Senior Career Instructor II of Spanish composition, creative writing, and poetry. His research on Latin American poetry, Poets on the Edge, was published by Brown Walker Press in 2016.
In 2008 he collaborated with Dr. Amado Láscar on the edition of Rebeldes y terrestres—an anthology of radical essays written by American, Latin American, and Spanish authors.
His essay Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control was published in 2023. A second edition with an introduction by John Zerzan was published in 2024 by El Sur es América. This text is a reflection on the transformations the world is undergoing post 2020-2022 pandemic in the context of the climate crisis.
SHAMANISM
One of Jesús' interests is shamanism. He collaborated with Dr. Chellis Glendinning in the piece “In Service to the Deities”—a conversation about trauma, healing, and the shamanic path published by Sacred Fire in 2009. He has also taught seminars on literature and shamanism at the University of Oregon and the Universidad Austral de Chile, and presented at conferences at the University of British Columbia and the Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. His long project, Realidades multidimensionales, is finally completed after 17 years of study and practice.
SPONSORSHIPS
The Sylt Foundation sponsored Jesús Sepúlveda to be a writer-in-residence in South Africa in 2016 and Germany in 2018. He was also invited to Cambodia to read his work and participate in the Foundation’s program “Sensing Change and Transformation” in 2017. In 2019 the Instituto de Cultura Oregoniana awarded him first place in the state of Oregon’s Spanish poetry contest.
INTERNATIONAL POETRY FESTIVALS
Jesús Sepúlveda has been invited to read his poetry in more than twenty countries, leading him to participate in many international poetry festivals throughout the world. Recent participations (in person) include:
• Chair Poetry Evenings 2022. Kolkata’s International Poetry Festival. Kolkata, India, November 26-28, 2022.
• 35th International Poetry Festival in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada, October 4-13, 2019.
• 11th International Poetry Festival in Puerto Rico, 16-23, March 2019.
• “Carruaje de pájaros”. Chiapas, Mexico, September 19-22, 2018.
• 5th Poetry Festival “Poésie Sauvage”. La Salvetat-sur-Agoût, France, August 17-19, 2018.
• Poetry on the Road. Bremen, Germany, May 31-June 6, 2018.
• 21st International Poetry Festival of Cartagena, Colombia, December 1-4, 2017.
• “Sensing Change and Transformation.” Meta House, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, August 10, 2017.
• 27th International Poetry Festival of Medellín, Colombia, July 8-15, 2017.
• Tabanan International Poetry Festival, Bali, Indonesia, November 26 - December 1, 2015.
• 54th Struga Poetry Evenings, Struga, Macedonia, August 26-31, 2015.
• XI Festival Internacional de Poesía de Granada, Nicaragua, February 15-22, 2015.
POETRY COLLECTIONS
• Pax Americana (bilingual). Trans. by the author et al. Ohio: El Sur es América, 2023.
• Poço de seda. Antologia breve (bilingual—Spanish and Portuguese). Trans. Pedro Morais. Lisbon, Portugal: Livros Flauta de Luz, 2022.
• É um Rio que Perdeu a sua Luz (e-book–selected poems in Portuguese). Trans. Júlio Henriques and Pedro Morais. Brazil: Entre Editora, 2020.
• Espejo de los detalles / Mirror of Details (bilingual). Trans. Elmira Louie. Virginia: El Sur es América, 2020.
• Espejo de los detalles. Santiago de Chile: Calabaza del Diablo, 2020.
• Wirikuta (chapbook–selected poems). Puerto Rico: Proyecto Editorial La Chifurnia, 2019.
• Secoya. New York: Sudaquia Ediciones, 2015.
• Poemas de un bárbaro (selected poems 1987-2013). Santiago de Chile: Contragolpe Ediciones, 2013.
• Antiegótico. Viña del Mar, Chile: Nihil Obstat, 2013.
• Escrivania. Querétaro, Mexico: Ediciones El Hechicero, 2003.
• Correo negro. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones del Leopardo, 2001 (Santiago de Chile: Mago Editores, 2008).
• Hotel Marconi (bilingual). Trans. Paul Dresman. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 2006, 2012.
• Hotel Marconi. Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio, 1998.
• Reinos del príncipe caído. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Documentas, 1991.
• Lugar de origen. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones de la Hecatombe, 1987.
BOOKS
• Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control. Monee, Illinois, Bad Idea Publishing, 2023 (out of print).
• Poetic Reason in the Age of Digital Control. Second edition. Athens, Ohio, El Sur es América, 2024.
• Poets on the Edge: Vicente Huidobro, César Vallejo, Juan Luis Martínez, and Néstor Perlongher. Boca Raton, Florida: Brown Walker Press, 2016.
• Rebeldes y terrestres (in collaboration with Amado Láscar). Santiago, Chile: Mosquito, 2008.
• El jardín de las peculiaridades. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones del Leopardo, 2002.
English editions:
• The Garden of Peculiarities. Trans. Daniel Montero. Cape Town, South Africa: Bolo’Bolo Books, 2011, 2016.
• The Garden of Peculiarities. Trans. Daniel Montero. Los Angeles, California: Feral House, 2005.
Spanish editions:
• El jardín de las peculiaridades. Viña del Mar, Chile: Nihil Obstat, 2011, 2018.
• El jardín de las peculiaridades. Barcelona, Spain: L’Anomia, 2015.
• El jardín de las peculiaridades. El Bolsón, Argentina: Apuntes para la cuidadanía, 2014, 2023.
• El jardín de las peculiaridades. Santiago de Chile, Tierra Verde, 2010.
Portuguese editions:
• O Jardim das Peculiaridades. Trans. Paulo M. Ribeiro. Mata Atlântica, Brazil: Ediçôes Insurrectas and Cultive Resistência, 2022.
• O Jardim das Peculiaridades. Trans. Pedro Morais (revised by Júlio Henriques). Lisbon, Portugal: Textos subterrâneos, 2018.
• O Jardim das Peculiaridades. Trans. Paulo M. Ribeiro. Brazil: Facçâo Fictícia, 2016.
• O Jardim das Peculiaridades. Trans. Cultive Resistência and Erva Danhina (revised by Paulo M. Ribeiro). São Paulo, Brazil: Cultive Resistência, 2011 (Você Tem que Desistir, 2011).
• O Jardim das Peculiaridades. Trans. Erva Danhina. São Paulo, Brazil: Erva Danhina, 2008.
French editions:
• Le Jardin des singularités. Trans. Dmitri Fragata. Paris, France: Aux Forges de Vulcain, 2013.
• Le Jardin des singularités. Trans. Dmitri Fragata. Montréal, Canada: Hic & Nunc, 2007.
Italian edition:
• Il giardino delle peculiarità. Trans. David Hauser. Perugia, Italy: Edizioni Era Nuova, 2010.